The House Committee on Agriculture and Food has concluded its three-month probe into the sudden increase in onion prices last year, and concluded that an onion cartel is allegedly “very much alive” in the country.
In a news conference, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo and House Committee on Agriculture and Food Chairman Mark Enverga formally asked law enforcement agencies to smash the onion cartel.
“That’s why we are calling on the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation], PCC [Philippine Competition Commission], and DA [Department of Agriculture]: Please work together to expose the Onion Cartel. With the push of Speaker Martin Romualdez and the diligence of Chair Mark Enverga, the committee worked hard to investigate and completely break the Onion Cartel that little by little brings torture to our farmers and people,” said Quimbo.
According to Enverga, the committee report, as well as the panel recommendations, will be released in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, Quimbo tagged companies and personalities allegedly involved in the cartel.
“It did not help that many of the witnesses were not at all cooperative and truthful with their testimonies. But at the end of the day, the document doesn’t lie. A careful scrutiny of numerous public documents, including General Information Sheets, registries of the Bureau of Plant Industry and the Department of Trade and Industry; the income statements submitted to the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] and the Committee, the inventory reports submitted to the Committee led me to the conclusion that the Onion Cartel is very much alive in our country,” said Quimbo.
Reigning onion queen
According to Quimbo, Leah Cruz is allegedly the “reigning undisputed onion queen.”
“She often says that she has abandoned the industry, that she no longer import onions, that she only does farming and trucking in the onion industry. This is not true based on the documents,” said Quimbo.
“Leah Cruz operates the biggest onion cartel in the country. She does this through a SEC registered corporation called Philippine VIEVA Corporation, which was established in 2013. This was created at the time when she was first tagged as ‘sibuyas queen’ in a series of news reports in 2012. She is the effective majority owner of the company,” added Quimbo.
Quimbo said three companies are also allegedly found under Cruz —Yom Trading, La Reina, and Vegefru Producing Store—the largest importers of yellow onions in 2022, with a total volume of 5,445.66 metric tons (MT) or 68.74 percent of total imported volume.
Their imports of red onions in 2022 reached 7,648.81 MT or 41.02 percent of total imported volume, the lawmaker said.
“It is clear that she continues to import onions despite all her denials. She lied to us in Congress, although he was under oath,” Quimbo alleged.
The lawmaker said PhilVIEVA is a fully vertically integrated corporation that covers almost all operations in the onion industry, from farming, trading, cold storage and trucking.
“In other words, from head to toe, they are involved in the onion industry,” Quimbo said.
“The existence of PhilVIEVA is doubtful. The members of PhilVIEVA do not have joint operations. They said they have almost no joint income. Their statements about the business purpose of the corporation are not consistent. But they are each other’s customers. And they are also investors of each other. We can see their relationship in an Onion Matrix,” Quimbo said.
The lawmaker also said even though Cruz has been reportedly blacklisted in the DA as an importer, she could allegedly import through her partner in PhilVIEVA.
Aside from PhilVIEVA, Quimbo said, they allegedly also use dummy corporations, and this allegedly includes onion importers Vegefru Producing Store and Rosal Fruit and Vegetable Trading.
“They are out of PhilVIEVA, but it also belongs to Leah Cruz. When we asked her in the hearing if she knew the owner of these dummy corporations, Leah Cruz bluntly said that she did not know who the owner was. But again, the documents don’t lie. Based on the public documents submitted by these corporations, we discovered that the registered telephone numbers of these corporations are identical to the phone numbers of Ms. Lea Cruz’s office. They don’t know each other but they have the same telephone numbers? What are they, partyline? How is PhilVIEVA being used to increase onion prices? To be able to manipulate the price, you must have control of a lot of supply of onions. This is where PhilVIEVA’s power comes from,” said Quimbo.
The lawmaker said first they allegedly target the local farmers and farmers will be charged at the farm gate in two ways.
“First, the lack of cold storage will be used as an excuse because farmers do not have access to cold storage…. Second means of controlling supply is to corner the importation of onions,” she said.
Citing Philippine Statistics Authority data in 2022, Quimbo reiterated that the projected shortage of onions should be small.
“In fact, the shortage was only going to be about 7 percent. Therefore, the price increase of more than 400 percent from July to December 2022 is not justified. Based on the testimonies of the cold storage operators here in the nine hearings, the cold storages are full. So there is no reason to increase the price of onions to 700 per kilo. Clearly, the price increase is artificial. It is clear as day that this is the result of a conspiracy by the onion cartel,” she said.
‘Stronger’ evidence
Moreover, Enverga said Leah Cruz was able to have her way in the onion industry even before current administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
“I think this time the evidence linking them again is stronger,” said Enverga.
It is for this reason that Enverga said officials like former DA secretary William Dar, Marcos’ predecessor in the department, has some explaining to do.
“Based on the diagram presented by Cong. Stella Quimbo, former Sec. Dar has a lot of explaining to do,” Enverga said.
“Katulad ng sinabi rin ni Cong. Stella for a cartel to fly kinakailangan may kasama rin sa gobyerno, hindi mangyayari ang cartel o hindi magiging successful iyung operations kung walang kasabwat,” Enverga said.
Enverga and Quimbo, however, credited President Marcos for giving attention to the cartel problem through the House leadership.
It can be recalled that Speaker Romualdez ordered the House inquiry last February in order to give the public answers about the onion price surge.
Image credits: Rusu Eugen Catalin | Dreamstime.com